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We assume that every writer can benefit from some guided talk about their writing projects.

There are nearly as many ways of doing writing center work as there are writing centers. While certain principles hold true for writing centers across the country (a belief in the power of individualized instruction and collaborative theory, among others), the work we do should also be shaped by the localized needs of our various campuses--and the epistemic positioning of the person(s) in charge. This particular person-in-charge works from the following assumptions regarding literacy: (1) "good" writing is almost entirely determined by the context in which it is evaluated: (2) "good" writers are able to figure out the literacy requirements of the particular rhetorical situation in which a writing project will be evaluated/utilized. Both of these assumptions make writing center work central (or almost) to literacy education because, as many have argued, talking about the ideas driving a writing project with someone trained to ask provocative questions is vitally important for any writer, not just inexperienced writers. That is, writers need to talk about the ideas and the rhetorical choices of a writing project with someone trained to help them (a) read the context within which this essay will be evaluated and (b) help them negotiate this writing project successfully so that (c) they can produce an essay that they think is important and that their intended audience (often the instructor) will likely read as successful. This is where you come in.

Before I go on to discuss the tutoring process and some tips for tackling your first session (see chapter 2), Iit is important that you become familiar with the writing process  (or, better yet, processes). We work from the dual assumptions that (1) language is dependent upon the context in which it is uttered and negotiated and (2) writing is a process that yields a social artifact, not just a product. That means that we must not only help the writer read the context for which she preparing her writing project, but we must also help her develop a successful process by which she will tackle future writing projects. Thus your role is much more complicated than showing the writer the "right" way to engage in academic discourse. In fact, no single "right" way exists.

Writing is a very complicated task, and writing center work is no less complicated. You must not only help the student read the context of her current writing project, but you must also determine the stage at which this current draft is most probably stalled, develop a rapport with the student so you can try to determine her relationship with this project in particular and literacy in general, help her rework problematic relationships with literacy and develop new habits that may yield more successful writing products, among other things. Thus, it is important to examine how writing typically works.

WRITING IN PHASES

Writing is a Process

Research tells us that effective writers often break the complex task of writing into multiple phases. They do this because they understand how important it is to figure out what they want to say before struggling too much with how they want to say it. Such writers see ideas and the structure of writing as quite different (though deeply related) tasks. In this sense, many of our most complex writing projects begin as what one scholar (Linda Flower) calls "writer-based prose." At the writer-based phase, the writer is developing drafts and notes she really does not expect anyone else will ever read. Because most composition scholars argue that we learn by writing, it makes sense that we should use the messy early drafts and notes to wrap our arms more firmly around our topic, evidence, and arguments.

Once we figure out what we want to say, we are in a much more powerful position to figure out how we want to say it. Have you ever stopped yourself in the middle of saying/writing something incredibly smart and fabulous in order to find the most appropriate word only to find that you had forgotten what you were saying/writing in the first place? This happens to me more than I care to admit. If I have notes somewhere to which I can refer in order to jog my memory (from the writer-based phase), then I'm in good shape. Otherwise, well . . .

The "reader-based" phase is the phase in which writers try to shape their ideas (those generated in the writer-based phase) into something readers might find interesting, effective, well-organized, and convincing. Again, writing is an extraordinarily complex activity, and the best way to take on a complicated activity seems to be to take it one step at a time.

How can you apply this distinction in the Writing Center? FIRST, dialogue with the writer in order to help her determine what she wants to say. If the writer hasn't yet figured out what she really wants to say, then it makes no sense to help her figure out where she should place her commas in her current draft or where she should place her thesis statement. If she is working within the writer-based phase (even is she has a draft), help her work through this phase in productive ways by asking her questions designed to help her wrap her arms more firmly around her topic, evidence, assertions, and key assumptions, major claims, and the like. Try to help her avoid worrying about how to spell a word when she is simply trying to figure out the evidence she wants to use to support her claim. In order to support the notion that "writing is a process" (or, more likely, a series of processes that occur in a given activity system) and that "revision is key," we must not ask the writer to consider sentence-level issues like awkward word use because  doing so would encourage the reader to stick with sentences that may not work when she "re-sees" her draft through conversation. As they say in response to the question, "How do you eat a cow?" One bite at a time.

Many argue that writer-based and reader-based activities are two distinctly different aspects of the writing process and that writer-based prose nearly always precedes reader-based prose. Despite this distinction, however, it is important to note that one may (and should) effectively slip back and forth between these two phases in any given writing project without confusing the two (that is, without simultaneously considering both what we want to say and how we want to say it).

Writing is a Recursive Process

Most effective writers break writing tasks into multiple phases; however, we know that these phases are largely recursive rather than linear. Conventional wisdom regarding the writing process divides it into several, recurring steps: (1) Invent, (2) Arranget, (3) Revise, (4) Edit. That is, most writers find themselves moving from "3" to "1" as they learn they need to generate some more support for a particular point or from "2" to "1" as they discover an example may not be as clear as they had originally assumed.

So writing is a messy process. No fool-proof formula for writing exists, despite the popularity of the five-paragraph essays and  other plug-and-play formats. The context, purpose, and audience should determine the majority of the choices we make in writing essays. The form should not (at least in most cases) determine the decisions you make in creating and revising an essay.

Form follows function, not the other way around.

SUMMARY

I. As a tutor, try to help writers think about what they want to say before they ever begin to worry about how they need to say it.

II. Writing is a recursive process, so you may find yourself and your student returning to the writer-based phase even late in the process, perhaps when she is editing a draft she thinks is all but done but finds a gap in logic that cannot be ignored. However, it is harder to bring inexperienced writers back into this writer-based phase once you begin to discuss "grammar" or other reader-based issues because most inexperienced writers work from the very popular idea that "good" writing is, above all, "correct" writing, writing "correctly" means writing without errors, and "good" writers get it right in the first draft. We want to disrupt these myths rather than reinforce them.

For this reason, help writers look past surface-level issues like vocabulary, spelling, and punctuation until you are both pretty confident that her draft is already quite effective (well-developed, well-organized, well-reasoned, etc).

III. As a tutor, it is important for you to help the writer determine the phase at which her current draft may be stalled and to help her work her way out of this phase in productive ways (through open-ended questions and conversation). In order to do this, you must have a good understanding of the various stages involved in writing (something you know intuitively as good writers but may not know consciously). Conventional wisdom regarding the writing process breaks up this process into several recurring steps. Think about them in this way: 

          Stage One: Inventing

In this step, the writer is usually trying to figure out what is being asked of her, what she wants to say, and why she wants to say it. "Invention" is most certainly part of the writer-based phase. At this point, the writer is working to come up with ideas ("inventing") that would be interesting and would fulfill the assignment, and she is trying to figure out what she already knows on the subject, how her background has prepared her to tackle this subject, and what she feels about the subject. At this stage, she should be trying to identify the audience and to develop a thesis statement and some supporting ideas that would convince the audience of the argument embedded in the thesis.

Inexperienced writers often neglect this phase. Some may jot down a few notes before they begin drafting, but few have sufficiently worked through these ideas before they move on to the next, reader-based phase. Other aspects of invention may occur, but the most common sort of writing we see in our Writing Center is thesis-driven, academic prose and, therefore, these rhetorical moves are quite typical..

NOTE: When I say "inexperienced" I also mean those students who have been successful writers in other contexts (even those working on theses and dissertations) but have little experience with the current context in which they find themselves.

Drafting may also be considered a part of the "writer-based" (or "invention") phase if the writer drafts like I do and like many composition specialists argue we should: to "discover" what we want to say. Peter Elbow calls this sort of draft a "Discovery Draft." According to Elbow, "meaning is not what you start out with but what you end up with," and, for this reason, some drafts may be best understood as "writer-based."

       Stage Two: Arrangement

Here, the writer considers how she is going to say what she wants to say. She is trying to figure out the best order for her evidence. She is trying to figure out where to put her research (if it is a research paper). She is trying to shape an effective introduction and conclusion. Inexperienced writers often start at this phase and end at this phase. Your job is to help them find their way out of this one-draft "process." Very, very few writers are one-drafters, but many inexperienced writers would swear they've never known any other kind.

When writers move into this second phase ("arranging" reader-based prose), she should have a pretty solid handle on what she wants to say. That does not mean what she wants to say won't/can't change as she works through this phase, but it does mean that she has worked Phase One quite rigorously to reach this phase. That is, in the second phase of the writing process, she is considering how she is going to say what she wants to say. She is trying to figure out the best order for her evidence. If this is a research-based paper, she is trying to figure out where and how to best integrate her evidence into her overall argument. She is trying to shape an effective introduction that will "grab" her reader's attention and effectively set up her argument and a conclusion that will appropriately "wrap up" her paper.

Inexperienced writers often start and end at this stage. Many times reliance on what Durst has called the "sacred Cs" (correctness, . . ) strengthens their faith in the idea that writing is a formula and, perhaps, the five paragraph structure will fulfill any and all writing assignments. Your job is to help them find their way out of this one-draft process and to embrace the idea that form follows function, not the other way around. Very, very few writers are one-drafters, but many inexperienced writers would swear they've never known any other kind.

Stage Three: Revising

This is another stage that is too often neglected. Here, the writer reworks (re-"sees") what she has drafted. Here, she tries to figure out if another order might be more convincing and effective. She tries to discern whether or not she needs to bring in more evidence or reshape her thesis or rework her introduction (returning to the prewriting or the drafting stages for a moment). She checks again to make sure that her draft addresses the assignment as the instructor has explained it must. She tries to make sure that the kind of writing she has developed here is appropriate for the audience it is supposed to reach.

You should spend a lot of time helping students work through this stage and helping them recognize it as an important stage in the writing process. Again, the student may not know how to ask these questions of her own draft--she may not even know she should be asking these questions. Your job is to ask the questions the inexperienced writer may not be asking herself.

As a tutor, you will find yourself spending most of your time with this stage. All writers, not just inexperienced ones, could use some feedback as far as this stage is concerned. But remember as you work with students regarding this stage, you are only there to guide them. You are not there to make any of these decisions for them. They are in the class. They know the instructor. They should know a bit about the requirements of the assignments. You are only there to ask the questions they may have not thought to ask of themselves.

Stage Four: Editing/Presentation Concerns

Many, many students will come in wanting help with this stage. But 9.999 times out of 10, these students are not ready for anyone to look at these surface-level mistakes. This is the FINAL stage of the writing process. This is the stage at which the writer "looks over" her draft to catch awkward phrasing, grammatical mistakes, formatting problems, and so forth. If a writer concerns himself/herself with editing before the paper has been sufficiently revised, then she will have wasted her time. If at all possible, do not look at a paper for these surface-level concerns until the paper is all but done, having been deeply revised. If you do deal with surface-level mistakes before the paper has been deeply revised, then you may have, at best, wasted your time because returning to Stage Three will likely remove or change some of the sentences you will have just corrected. At worst, you will have set the writer at a standstill because she may not want to get rid of her perfectly phrased sentences even if to keep them will yield a confusing draft, poorly organized and unconvincing.

Having said that, though, a large percentage of the students entering the Writing Center will ask for assistance at this level. Echoing past English teachers and the popular understanding of literacy education, they may be convinced that that good writing is "correct" writing and that placing the commas in all the right places will, in and of itself, make for a great paper. I do not want to imply that we are here to give students what is good for them whether they like it or not, nor do believe grammar really doesn't matter. It matters a great deal, and we do want to give our students what they want. But it is most important for me to help you understand how problematic this version of "good" writing can be for a writer and work from this in your sessions (diplomatically and perhaps passive aggressively).

Stages One through Four are recurring. A writer will likely move back into "invention" when she moves to the "revising" stage and she may move to "arrangement" again when she is working through the revision stage. Your job is to be able to figure out at which of these stages the student needs to spend her time with you. We will work through developing these expert reading skills in our weekly meetings.

PUTTING THE PROCESS TO WORK IN THE WRITING CENTER

SCENARIO: Judy comes in with a strong beginning to an essay that is not due for a couple weeks. After speaking with her for a little while, you discover that her assignment asks her to explore the major reasons why she has decided to become an ESL teacher. She feels a little uncomfortable with this requirement to talk about her personal motivations. Instead, she has chosen to describe her own ESL teacher, a person named Mr. Lu who had a tremendous influence on her. You have asked her to read what she has to you, after you learn that she has not spoken of Mr. Lu's influence on her professional choice but rather described just who he is and where he teaches. She isn't anywhere in this essay at all.

ACTIVITY: Answer the following questions with respect to this tutorial session:

1. Is Judy's "draft" currently writer-based or reader-based? How can you tell? How will you determine this information?

2. How can you best help Judy? by focusing on arrangement? invention? revision? presentation? a combination of two or more of these phases?

3. How will you set up this session in order to focus on the stages named above (in #2)?

SOME FINAL WORDS

Few good writers are consciously aware of the processes by which they create their work. You have found much success as a writer, so you know what it takes to write well in a variety of contexts. But it takes some work to translate that intuition into something less successful writers can understand. Working in the Writing Center will help you articulate your own writing process in ways you didn't know were possible or even necessary.

The next chapter offers strategies for helping you negotiate a given tutorial session. Read on.